Book Review: 'The $60,000 Dog' by Lauren Slater

A collection of essays as featured in the November 2012 issue

by Pam Houston

Photograph: Avery Powell

“Animals can attack you but they will never, ever revile you. Only humans can do that,” writes Lauren Slater, who trusts her animals but keeps an eye on her people. In The $60,000 Dog (Beacon)—assumption-busting, gut--wrenching, life-affirming essays about the borderlands where humans and animals intersect—Slater remembers a baby raccoon that helped her adjust to a foster family; a charismatic riding instructor who loved a horse yet savagely beat it; and the look on her husband’s face when, unable to pay for both her dog’s medicine and her daughter’s summer camp, Slater chose in favor of the dog.